


President of Mars

by theleafpile



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Descriptions of Heaven, Descriptions of Hell, Discussions with a very nervous angel, Discussions with a very nervous demon, Gen, POV Trixie, Trixie WILL be president of mars someday she's just doing recon right now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 07:39:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17914628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleafpile/pseuds/theleafpile
Summary: In which Trixie finds a very special feather that allows her to travel in her dreams.





	President of Mars

Trixie found the feather on the floor just after her mother came home.

She burst into her arms when she came through the door. She was happy to see her, but mostly it meant she could stop watching the cooking show Mrs. Jones had on the T.V., and for that she was very excited. Her mother had a look on her face that said something was wrong, but she had that look on her face a lot so Trixie tried to ignore it. 

After the hug her mother moved to thank the babysitter, and the feather fell from where it had been stuck on her back. It was a pretty, light little thing, like from one of the pillow fights from her mom’s movie. Trixie wondered if it was from another movie. 

Maybe mom would be embarrassed about that one, too.

She snatched it up from the ground before her mom turned to watch the babysitter go, and tried to cover it up without crushing it in her hand. 

It was warm, and soft, and gave a happy little pulse on her palm. Trixie vowed she would keep it safe and hidden and her secret, just in case.

 

“When’s Maze coming back?” she asked, as her mother tucked her into bed. 

“You don’t like Mrs. Jones?” 

Trixie knew it would be rude to say it, so she scrunched up her face a little. 

Her mom fussed with the blankets around her chin a bit more, and looked like she was trying to hold the words back in her mouth. “I don’t know, monkey. Maze has to figure some things out. I think she’ll be back, but it might take some time.”

Trixie sighed. Nobody ever gave her a straight answer about anything. “Okay. I’ll wait.”

She got a kiss on the forehead, and her mom turned out the lamp before leaving and shutting the door. Trixie counted to fifty, then slipped out from under the covers and padded over to her dresser. It was too dark to see properly, but there was a bit of golden light that came in from under the door, and a bit of golden light that came in through the window from the courtyard below, and it was just enough for her to find what she was looking for.

Nana had given her a jewelry box. It fit in her hand and was white and opal, with a little latch on the front. She opened the top. Inside, atop her purple elephant bracelets and three sets of mismatched earrings, lay the feather. 

It glowed a little in the light, but it was silver, like moonlight.

Trixie lifted it gently out and closed the box and returned to bed. She put it under her pillow and settled back down. It felt like a very lucky feather, not like a regular one. Maybe, if she kept it close, her dream would come true.

Her dream to become The First President of Mars.

 

Trixie found herself waiting in line behind a very tall adult who seemed intent on going nowhere. Everything around her was white. The floor was white. She looked to the right: nothing but white. The left, the same. Except for the man in front, who wore a lot of brown. She crossed her arms and twisted around. A woman stood behind her, with a kindly face and a contented smile. She was older than Nana and had more wrinkles.

“Hello,” Trixie said. 

The woman looked down. She smiled more. “Hello,” she said. “Aren’t you a bit young?”

The man in front of her moved forward, and Trixie stepped forward, too. “For what?”

The woman put a soft hand on her shoulder, and gave it a little squeeze. “It’s alright,” she said assuredly, though Trixie wasn’t frightened. “You don’t need to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.”

The woman removed her hand, and the man in front of her moved. Trixie watched him go through a big gate beside a podium which was occupied by a very bored-looked attendant, and nothing at all like the ones she saw at Disneyland.

But this was no Disneyland. Beyond the gates was a city more beautiful than a thousand Cinderalla castles, and way more real. The skyline gleamed like silver and white, and the sky over it was very dark with many stars. Several shot across the sky as she watched. 

She realized she was being rude, and so stepped up to the podium to introduce herself. It was quite tall, and she didn’t come up to it very far.

“Hello,” she said to the man behind her. He was also dark, but his dress was silver and black. He had been reading something and startled. He looked around, then leaned over the podium to look down.

She stuck out a hand. “I’m Trixie.”

The man looked back at his book.

“Where am I?” she asked, retracting her hand.

“You’re not supposed to be here, I think,” he said. She thought he was a bit nervous. If he had glasses he’d probably push them up the bridge of his nose.

“Where is here?” she asked again. Why was it always so hard to get a real answer from adults?

“You’re in the Silver City, youngling,” he explained, then desperately shook his head. “But –”

“Where’s the Silver City?” she asked. She tried not to stamp her foot, even though she was feeling very impatient.

He looked around for help. “Um.”

She crossed her arms. 

“Well.”

She fixed her gaze. 

“It’s not… exactly… of this Earth,” he said, like a question.

She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m not on Earth?” 

His eyes grew wide. “Not exactly. Though it is said the Kingdom of –”

She gasped. “I’m on _Mars?!_ ”

It was a guess, but she was very good at guessing. The man’s opened his mouth to speak, but she decided she didn’t care anything more for what he had to say. 

She dashed through the gate and into the pretty city, and had just enough time to take in one big, excited breath before waking up.

 

“I went to Mars last night,” she told Mr. Thornton, when he was walking the whole class out to recess. 

“You did?” he asked. He also wore a lot of brown. Maybe he was like the man ahead of her in line, and knew something about the whole thing.

“Yep,” she answered, skipping and letting her classmates go ahead. “I fell asleep and when I woke up I was in line, and there was a nice old lady there, and a confused man who told me I shouldn’t be there, and when I went through the door everything was shining and glittering and beautiful.”

“Hmm,” Mr. Thornton said. “But if it’s Mars, why were there a lot of people there? Wouldn’t they be aliens?”

She considered it. They stepped through the double doors and into the sunshine. “I guess they must have been. Maybe that’s why he said I couldn’t go in. Cause I’m human.”

“Who did?”

“The man with the book.”

“Oh.”

Mr. Thornton moved off a little ways to yell at Geoffrey and Jeremy, who had started punching each other.

She wasn’t deterred. She tugged on his sleeve and regained his attention. “How do I become President if they’re aliens and don’t want me to go inside?”

“Trixie,” he sighed. “You should go play.”

“I will,” she assured. Jessica had already started kicking the soccer ball around, lining up to practice her shots. “But I want to know.”

Mr. Thornton frowned when he was thinking. He was frowning now. It made his forehead into a lot of lines. “I’d say you’re definitely smarter than our current President. You could be president of any planet.”

“But what do I do?”

Mr. Thornton said something like sorry and stepped away, to break up Geoffrey and Jeremy, who were now wrestling each other. Jeremy had Geoffrey’s face in the dirt and was shouting at him to eat it.

Trixie ran over to play soccer, and decided to forget about the problem until later.

 

Lucifer was standing at the breakfast counter when Trixie came inside, and even though he said “Ah!” at her entrance she still hugged him anyway, because he always looked like he needed it.

“Child,” he said, as she let go. 

“Hi, Lucifer!” 

Her mother came around from inside the kitchen and gave her a one-armed hug, the other holding onto a cup of coffee. “Hey, monkey,” she said, squeezing. “Did you have a good day?” 

“I think so,” she said.

“I’m going to go get changed,” her mother said, starting to make her way toward the stairs. Lucifer watched her go with an expression like a fish. 

Trixie could hardly contain her excitement. Lucifer always told her the truth. She waited, very politely, until he looked back down at her before speaking.

“Is a king kind of like a president?” she asked.

“Why do you ask?”

She shrugged. “I want to be the first President of Mars.” 

He scrunched his eyebrows a little and looked up, thinking. “Have humans gotten to Mars yet?” he wondered aloud.

“I went yesterday. Though it wasn’t red like in the pictures.”

He still looked to be thinking, which wasn’t like him. She sighed. “Weren’t you a king of something?”

He shook off his thoughts. “The King of Hell, yes. It’s not quite like being a President. Nobody voted me in.” He grinned, but something about it was off. “Maybe I should take that back.”

“Why?”

“Because apparently anybody can be president.”

“Of anywhere?” she asked, growing excited. “Cause that’s what Mr. Thornton said, too.”

“Anywhere you like, I suppose. But humans have such funny laws about that sort of thing. I suppose you wouldn’t have to worry about that too much on Mars.”

She nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Lucifer.”

“You’re welcome,” he said absently. She went to her room as her mother came down the stairs, and they talked for a while longer before Lucifer left. He didn’t stay for dinner, which was too bad, because usually he made them get extra takeout or make the stuff her mother cooked taste better.

 

Trixie had stuck the feather back in the jewelry box in the morning, and she repeated the whole thing again after her mother shut out the lights. 

This time, she was prepared. She waited in line again, but it didn’t take as long before she was at the podium again, and knocking on the silver wood.

The same man looked down and paled.

“How are you doing this?” he asked.

“Do you have a President?” she asked. 

He blinked. “Sort of?”

She nodded once, then said, very seriously: “Take me to your leader.”

He looked at his book, then at the line, then at her, and back at his book and her again before looking at the gates and looking very confused and generally helpless. She took pity on him, and came around and took his hand.

“It’s okay. We can go together.”

“Okay,” he said. She steered him away from the podium and toward the gates, which opened for him. She looked back at the line as they passed through. It was very long. No wonder he was so stressed. 

As soon as the gates shut everybody disappeared behind her into a thin, white mist like they were never even there at all, and she felt better.

“What’s your name?” she asked. They walked down the middle of a street, which seemed like an odd thing to do, but the streets looked like they were paved with marble and there were no cars around to watch out for. 

“Hadraniel.”

“I’m Beatrice, but everybody calls me Trixie.”

He had not let go of her hand. In fact, he held it very tightly, almost like he was afraid she would dart off. “I know,” he said, and smiled. He was still nervous, but the smile made her feel like everything was going to be okay. Daddy smiled like that a lot.

They seemed to be walking toward the center of something, though Trixie wasn’t sure how she knew that. There were many buildings lining the sides, and they crossed crosswalks leading down other roads. There were not many people about, but they all appeared to be very busy.

“Hadraniel,” she repeated to herself. “Like Amenadiel.”

He shuffled a step, but did not stop. “You are acquainted with Amenadiel?”

“Yeah,” she answered easily. “He’s Lucifer’s brother.”

Hadraniel stopped. She gave a little tug. He did not budge. 

“Everybody tells me that I have to work really, really hard to be the first president of Mars, but if there is one already then I really need to know because then I’m kinda done with math.”

He looked to the people around them, but they seemed too absorbed in whatever they were doing to help. He grimaced. “Okay.”

She beamed.

 

Hadraniel brought her into a building that looked like a high rise from downtown. He punched the elevator button to go UP, then let go of her hand. When the doors opened, she stepped in, and he did not.

“You’re not coming?” she asked. It would be a big thing to meet a president all by herself, but she was not afraid. She hadn’t been afraid at all, here.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he explained. The doors began to close, and he rushed along them to speak. “Top floor and if he asks how you got there please don’t mention my –”

The doors shut. She reached up on her tiptoes to push the biggest, highest button. 

All at once everything faded, and she was left standing in the middle of an office, like the precinct where her parents worked. There were file cabinets and windows and two chairs in front of a desk. The man sitting behind the desk had thick, dark hair that curled around his ears, and a big, brushy beard, and his shirtsleeves were pushed up to his elbows.

He had an elbow on the desk and his chin on a fist, and looked at her with a kind of twinkling in his eye that she thought was reserved only for Disney movies. “Trixie, hello. You’ve come a long way to see me.”

She agreed. She was getting very tired all of a sudden, even though she hadn’t felt tired on the walk, and plopped herself down into one of the chairs across from him. “Tell me about it.”

“Many people have many questions for me,” he began, and his voice was very soothing even though it sounded a bit like he was from a ranch with horses. “But as you have befriended my wayward sons, I feel obliged to answer at least one of yours.”

She pulled her legs up onto the chair and tucked them beside her. “Are you the President of Mars?”

Something in his face turned to surprise, and he laughed. She settled deeper into the seat. Its cushions were very plush and inviting, and he didn’t seem to care that her shoes might leave scuffs on it. 

“I have been asked many questions, child, but never that. It is said that I am above all things, the great ruler of men, and that all is within my kingdom.”

“Mars included?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“Perhaps,” he answered. Her heart fell. “But I am not its President. Nor is this Mars.”

“Oh,” she said. Her eyelids were growing very heavy. “Okay.”

“Beatrice,” he said, just before she fell asleep. “Would you tell my sons something for me?”

“Sure,” she said, yawning. The chair was really very comfortable, and his voice was getting far away.

“Please tell them –”

 

Trixie awoke in her bed, feeling a bit tired. Her mother had just opened the door and was calling for her to get up. 

“I’m up,” she called back, sitting upright and rubbing her eyes. She tried very hard to remember, but found she could not. Not the last bit, anyway. It seemed like something very important to remember.

She sprung out of bed, gathered up the feather and kissed it. “There is no president yet,” she whispered to it, before carefully placing it back in its box. “Maybe we went to the wrong Mars.”

Her mother appeared in the doorway, mouth open and ready to yell. She startled when she saw she was up. “Oh. Good. Go brush your teeth, we’re already running late. Eggs?”

“Yes, please!” Trixie said, skipping out the door to the bathroom. “With maple syrup!”

Her mother said a lot of words that sounded a lot like a no, but Trixie decided to ignore it and hope anyway.

 

Mother’s friend Linda came over one evening after dinner, and the two ladies poured wine into two glasses and finished two bottles all before Trixie went to bed. Trixie liked Linda. She was short, so it didn’t take much to look up at her and she had big glasses she let her try on to help her bump into things, but she answered most of Trixie’s questions in the tone that adults used when they didn’t want to say something, which bothered her.

Trixie had curled herself up beside Linda on the couch, pressing into her side. She was warm and soft and smelled like perfume, but not the strong kind Nana used. 

Trixie waited until her mother had gotten up before interrupting, because she had manners.

“I met Lucifer and Amenadiel’s dad yesterday,” she told her.

There was a very long pause. Trixie was afraid Linda was going to wait until her mother came back, which wouldn’t do. She pushed herself upright to make sure.

“Where?” Linda asked.

“Where he’s supposed to be I guess. But it was when I was asleep, so I don’t know.”

Linda relaxed.

“He told me he wasn’t the President of Mars, that there wasn’t one yet, which is good, cause it means I can still be the first.”

Linda put her arm around her and squeezed in a half-hug. It was nice. She looked down at her very seriously. “Did he say anything else?”

Trixie tried very hard to remember, and found she still could not. “He said ‘tell my sons’ but then I fell asleep in his chair in his office, and woke up here.”

Her mother returned, and smiled, and made a joke Trixie didn’t get but she laughed anyway. 

Later, there was the sound of a glass being put down that rung out like a very thin bell, and then a couple of murmured words, and Trixie was being lifted into the air and taken to bed.

 

A couple weeks later Maze came back, which was nice, because then she could babysit most of the time instead of Mrs. Jones, who liked watching cooking shows, or Jennifer, who texted a lot and never played. Maze played _all_ the time. They always went exploring, or she showed her how to kick and punch and land the right way when she threw her, or they did crafts together. They weren’t allowed to cook anymore, so they always got take out, and Maze let her pick whatever she wanted. It was awesome.

 

It occurred to Trixie, on a Thursday afternoon in Language Arts class (where good things rarely happened) that the feather, which lay forgotten in the jewelry box, hadn’t brought her to Mars like she wanted because she had never asked it to. It just brought her to the place _it_ wanted to go.

Even though the place it went was very gray and a little boring and not anywhere that seemed like an exciting place to go. Which seemed like such a waste, because she knew that you could go anywhere and do anything so long as you were dreaming.

 

Trixie cupped the feather in her hands so it wouldn’t flutter away and kneeled on the bed. She leaned over it and whispered. “I know you’ll keep me safe in my dream, feather.” 

She wanted to be very specific this time, just in case. “Let’s go together to Mars. To the Red Planet. Where the biggest volcano in the solar system is. To the place I can be president of someday.”

With that, she stuck the feather under her pillow.

“Please,” she added, as an afterthought.

Then she fell asleep.

 

There was no line this time, which was good, because Trixie had used up all her patience earlier that day when McKenna kept showing her all the snapchats she had saved from Ryan and kept going on and on about it when all Trixie really wanted to do was eat lunch. 

Everything was dark – it must have been night – and quiet, but the kind of quiet like the ocean is quiet, where there was always a noise but you didn’t think about it after a while. 

She listened as she walked. There definitely was water, here. It wasn’t moving very fast but she could hear it lapping at a shore somewhere close. And she’d always heard that Mars was supposed to be all dry with no water at all, except for at the ice caps. Maybe she was at an ice cap. 

It wasn’t very cold, but she had never seen snow in real life either and nobody on T.V. acted like it was very cold. They were always running around in it and playing and throwing it at each other, so it couldn’t be that bad.

She walked for a short while, content just to try and look around. The ground beneath her bare feet was very flat and very black, and everything around her was also dark, and there were no stars in the sky. 

She stopped, and slipped a hand into the pocket of her pajama pants, and felt the feather there. It pulsed assuredly.

“Hmm,” she said. “This is dumb. There’s nothing to be President of, here.”

A throat cleared somewhere, and she looked. Directly ahead of her there was a gate where there hadn’t been before. It had a great archway with many words written on it, and it was made of stone and iron and looked very heavy and old.

There were two men standing on either side of it, each holding a very big staff with a two-headed axe on the top of it, like Maze had. She approached. They both wore black and leather and had armored shoulder pads and shin pads, which looked a lot like the other girls at her roller derby practices. 

The one on the right only had the bottom half of his face, and the one on the left had only the top half of his face, and the rest of their faces were covered in strings like drool and white sinew and dark meat.

Trixie didn’t like it very much, but it was rude to stare. 

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Beatrice, but everybody calls me Trixie.”

They both spoke at the same time, even though the one with only the top half of the face couldn’t really talk, but there was a gash that seemed to open and close. “Turn away,” they said, their voices deep and loud.

 _That’s not very nice,_ she thought. 

“Is this Mars?” she asked, feeling less and less sure. Maybe she hadn’t been specific enough.

The one with the bottom half spoke. “The underworld,” he said.

“The great pit,” offered the other.

“Eternal darkness.”

“Eternal night,” corrected one.

“Where the light of God never shines.”

“Where immortal souls may find no rest.”

Trixie thought they seemed very eager to have an audience, but they didn’t answer her question. Nobody ever did!

“Do you have a President?” she asked.

The one with the bottom half snarled. He had a lot of teeth. “We had a King.”

“Who’s in charge now?” she asked, hoping it was nobody. They looked to one another carefully, like they were having a secret conversation. She tapped her foot.

“Would you like to meet him?” the one with the top half asked. Or, hissed, to be precise. The air left the gash like it was being squashed out of an empty capri sun.

She shrugged. “Since I’m here.”

Together they each grabbed a gate and opened it. It clanked and crashed and shook and scraped and set her teeth on edge. Beyond it was a pathway that seemed to go deeper the further it went on, between two walls that just got higher and higher. 

She stopped halfway through and held out her hand for the one on the right to take, because he had a mouth and it would make answering her questions easier. 

He looked at it – or she guessed he did, because he didn’t have eyes – and she shook it a little, impatient. He switched his axe over to the other hand and wrapped his around hers. It was very warm and clammy and maybe had a couple of scales.

The gate slowly closed behind them.

They passed a lot of doors that Trixie figured went to offices or apartments. Some of them were really old and heavy looking, and others were arched like in Aladdin, and some looked like the one leading to the teacher’s lounge.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“I have many names.”

“What do your friends call you?” 

He seemed to have to think about it, which made her feel a little sad. “Amy.”

“Oh,” she said. “I have a friend named Amy.” They turned another corner. “Now I have two friends named Amy.”

They walked a little further, passing a door that seemed to be playing Justin Bieber very loudly behind it. It faded into the distance.

“This is a very long walk,” she observed. “Longer than the other place.”

“Hell is very big,” he answered, then stopped. She did too.

“This is Hell?” she asked, looking around. Mostly it was very blue and ash kept falling from the sky like snow, but she thought it had to becoming from the volcano. “But Hell isn’t real. Not like Mars.”

She harrumphed, feeling very disappointed. “No wonder nothing’s red,” she grumbled. “Wait,” she realized. “Where were you taking me?”

“To the King of Hell,” he answered, and something in the way he bowed made him looked ashamed.

“But Lucifer is the King of Hell, and he’s in Los Angeles with Mommy.”

The skin that was left on the man’s face got even whiter. “Do you know of the King?”

“Yeah. He’s my friend.”

If the man had eyes, she thought they would be widening much further than would be possible, and he whirled them around and walked very quickly back the way they came. She hurried to keep up but kept stumbling over cracks and rocks.

It was all so disappointing. Maybe it just wasn’t possible to get to Mars. 

Not liking the way he was pulling her along, she grabbed the feather in her pocket and wished she was home.

She woke up. It was still dark outside, and it felt very late. There was a light coming from beyond the door, an orange one that was probably the fireplace. She slipped the feather out from under the pillow and padded over to the door. Lucifer and Mommy were sitting on the couch. They both looked very tired, and she wondered why they just didn’t go to bed.

Sometimes she couldn’t sleep when she was thinking about Mommy and Daddy, and so she wondered if Lucifer maybe felt the same way. 

She stepped out and yawned, gaining their attention. “Mommy I’m thirsty,” she said, rubbing her eyes. Her mother rose and walked toward the kitchen. 

Trixie hurried over to Lucifer and plopped down beside him, bouncing them both a little. His eyes were very dark and below them was starting to purple. She produced the feather and held it out for him to take.

“I tried to get to Mars with it,” she explained, “But it didn’t work. I went other places though and I think I met your dad, and he tried to tell me something but I fell asleep, I’m sorry. Maybe it will help you sleep better.”

He took the feather from her gingerly, and wrapped his fingers around it so her mother couldn’t see it when she came back in the room. She gave Trixie the glass of water, which she drank eagerly, and then let her walk her back to the bedroom.

“Goodnight, Lucifer,” she said, with a small wave.

He seemed to be watching her very carefully. “Goodnight, child.”

Maybe he’d have better luck with it than she did. She never even got to Mars at all.

Maybe Maze had something that would work better. She lay back down and let her mother put the covers back over her, which were still warm, and decided to ask her in the morning.


End file.
